Share
Morphotype

The essential form, appearance, and material characteristics of an organism or sophont

Utility Fog and human
Image from Juan Ochoa
A humanoid nearbaseline meets a sophont with a body made from utility fog
1. In biology, a shared shape and general appearance, regardless or the presence or absence of any common origin or relationship. The term may be applied to cells or organelles, or to parts of organisms such as scales or leaves, to whole organisms, or even to multi-species colonies of symbiotic organisms. Morphotype is a convenient concept when the relationships between similar entities is unclear, as may be the case in paleontology, or when it is the morphological similarities themselves that are of primary interest, as in comparative xenobiology. Xenobiologists, for instance, may speak of the 'prokaryotic morphotype' or the 'tree morphotype' or the 'fish morphotype' or 'worm morphotype' in describing life forms on a variety of unrelated life-bearing worlds.

2. With regard to sophont classification, the morphotype is the physical form or appearance of the sophont concerned. However, surface appearances can be deceptive. A human nearbaseline, a humanoid tweak, and a humanoid neogen, might all exhibit similar external morphotypes, even if they have very different internal composition, abilities and psychological profile.

Likewise two vecs, or even two clades of vecs, might have similar morphotypes but have very different internal mechanisms, origins and behaviour. On the other hand, vecs can quickly change their physical appearance by swapping out components or even downloading from one body to another. In the Current Era a significant majority of all sophonts has the ability to change morphotype relatively rapidly by swapping from one body to another, although not all individuals take advantage of this potential.

The term "morphotype" may also describe the design and capabilities of infomorphs, such as virtuals, aioids, transapients and archai. Since infomorphs are capable of rapid and almost unbounded changes to their manifestation, the term morphotype is more usually confined to incarnate entities such as bionts, cyborgs and vecs.

Individuals who frequently change their bodymorph may refer to their new body as a 'sleeve' or a 'skin'; if the new body is a temporary manifestation they may refer to it as an avatar, a word which is also used by infomorphs to refer to their current form. Infomorphs sometimes use the term skin as well, and can change their virtual skin at a moment's notice whenever they wish to do so.
 
Related Articles
  • Adaptationism - Text by Anders Sandberg
    The view that people should not adopt planets to suit themselves, but instead adapt to the planet. Adaptationists generally have a distaste for terraforming projects, or opt for only minimal terraforming, but instead prefer to use pantropy.
  • Body Transformation Protocols
  • Clade (sophontology)
  • Fitness Landscape - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    An abstract or mathematical representation of how mutations can change the fitness of one or more organisms. Evolution will tend to make populations move in an uphill direction on the fitness landscape.
  • Heteromorphs
  • Morphodynamics
  • Morphological Freedom
  • Morphology - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    The shape of something, especially the organic form of a living being. Also, the study of how morphology is regulated in complex systems such as developing tissues or nanosystems.
 
Appears in Topics
AugmenticsBiologyModosophonts
 
Development Notes
Text by Stephen Inniss
Additional material by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 19 December 2005.

 
 
>